


Fleecy Shining Gleaming Streaming/Gimme A Mare With Hair

by Sylphidine_Gallimaufry



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Holding Hands, Holiday Fic Exchange, Jack Frost and Pitch Black as Allies, Mutual Grooming, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Platonic Life Partners, Prompt Fill, ROTG Secret Santa 2018, Touch-Starved, that's as far as it goes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 17:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17228063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylphidine_Gallimaufry/pseuds/Sylphidine_Gallimaufry
Summary: On the brink of despair, Jack Frost follows a shadow and finds a herd of new friends.  Pitch Black is intrigued, Sandy is worried, the other Guardians are befuddled, and The Man In The Moon is keeping his own counsel... for the moment.





	Fleecy Shining Gleaming Streaming/Gimme A Mare With Hair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KS_Claw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KS_Claw/gifts).



> This is my entry for ROTG Secret Santa 2018.
> 
> Based on this prompt from Dreamwidth's RotG Kinkmeme:[ALL THE PRETTY HORSES: Jack spots a shadow and follows it... and comes face to face with a very beautiful horse, a Nightmare. But instead of being afraid of it, he is absolutely smitten. Jack has always loved animals, but horses are a particular favourite for some reason. And the Nightmares... well, they are quite frankly the most beautiful animals he has ever seen. The way their coat has an almost oily rainbow sheen to it, their golden, glowing eyes and their sleek, powerful bodies... Jack is pretty much head over heels.](https://rotg-kink.dreamwidth.org/3036.html?thread=7258076)

The light shrank away and the dusk grew stronger in its wake; it was an evening in late January in a tiny northern farming community.  Jack Frost had blanketed the ground and filigreed the fir trees with, he had to admit, one of his finest snowstorms in recent memory.  The fields, fallow now, slept under his artistry, and dreamed of cultivation in the spring.

 

 

He should have been happy.  

 

He knew all too well why he was not, as he watched the humans emerge from the long barn, swathed in their heaviest winter garments, and hurry back towards the warm and welcoming farmhouse.

 

Warm and welcoming to everyone, that is, except to a spirit they did not believe in and could not see.  

_They have each other_ , Jack mused as he perched in a fir tree,  _and I have a job that seems more and more pointless by the year._   He looked up at the barely visible sliver of moon and debated shaking his fist at it, physically as well as metaphorically.  In the end, he sighed and decided it was not worth the effort. He passed his staff restlessly from hand to hand and floated like featherdown to the crisp and rimey snow-covered ground.  Not a whisper of a crunch nor a single footprint showed his progress as he walked dejectedly to the barn and went inside.

 

There were ten dairy cows, each in their stalls, and a herd of thirty or so sheep in two large indoor pens off to the side.

 

There were no horses.

 

There should have been horses, in his opinion, although some niggling itch at the back of his mind asked him “Why?  YOU never had any.”

 

 

That same niggling itch nagged at him when he flopped down in the middle of one of the sheep pens as though he belonged there.  They were Suffolks, with long black faces and dainty black legs emerging from their puffy light-coloured fleeces.  Grunting and snorting sounds greeted him as they rustled in their bed of straw.  In Jack’s current frame of mind, it seemed that the sheep were choosing to move away from him just as much as they were moving closer together to conserve heat.

 

“Great.  Just great. Ab-so-lutely spiffy.  Now I don’t even rate respect from SHEEP,” he muttered.  The nearest ewe waggled her head and curled her lip at him, at which he gave a bitter chuckle.   ****“Well, at least you see me.  Don’t think I don’t know that you’ll run right through me given half a chance.”

 

Jack had intended to catch a nap before zooming off to Minsk to check on another cyclone system that was building towards a grand blizzard there, but his thoughts were starting to border on melancholy, and the only way his body and mind knew how to handle that was to spring into action.

 

He was halfway across the continent when he realized he hadn’t closed the barn doors.  He wrestled with his conscience for all of ten seconds before reversing in midair and speeding back to the farm.  

 

As he cruised in for a landing and started to tug the doors shut, Jack saw an odd shadow out of the corner of his eye, zipping past him at an impossible speed into the barn.  Before his brain registered  the notion that this might not be the brightest idea he’d ever had, he followed the creature making the shadow inside.

 

Jack’s excellent night vision adjusted quickly to the difference between the darkness outside the barn and the darkness within it.  The first thing he noticed was that the sheep were bunched together in an even tighter formation than before, their backs literally to the wall of their pen, clearly agitated by the murky intruder.The second thing he noticed was that its shape was familiar somehow, even when turned away from him...

 

 

_IT WAS A HORSE._   

 

A horse with a jaw more graceful and legs longer and more dainty than ever a Suffolk sheep had sported.  A horse whose mane and tail each furled out like skeins of ribbon far beyond the length of its body.  A horse whose coat seemed dipped in the blackest darkness, but which also shimmered with deep hues of purple and blue as its form rippled.

 

It had to be a spirit.  No creature that… beautiful… could possibly be an ordinary, earthbound animal.  The mysterious creature not only had a shadow of its own, but seemed to be MADE of shadows, or some dark fluid that undulated within a specific outline.

 

No, not it… she.  The horse was definitely a she, Jack thought, a mare.  A mare made of darkness, terrorizing sheep by night…

 

A  _Nightmare._

 

 

He was so delighted by his own pun that he burst into laughter and did a somersault into the air.  This startled the horse into wheeling around to face him.  Huge golden eyes burned with an impossible glow, mere inches from his own.

 

Jack couldn’t help himself; he HAD to feel for himself if that long nose was as velvety as it looked.  He reached out a hand to her, at the same moment that she leaned forward to sniff at him.

 

They sprang backwards from one another in startled bewilderment.

 

The Nightmare reared, her tail hiking high.

 

The only thing the frost sprite could think of to say was “Whoa.”

 

The word, ridiculous as it may have sounded, seemed to have the desired effect of calming the mare down.  After a long moment of each keeping completely still, the Nightmare moved first.  She nickered and leaned in again towards Jack, who began to stroke her, tears running down his face and freezing in the folds of his hoodie.

***********************

 

It was rare to see a frown on the face of the Sandman; he took his duties as the Guardian of Dreams very seriously, but he genuinely enjoyed his work, sending his dreamsand out into the world to weave tapestries of happiness and restful sleep.  

 

There was a situation, only recently observed but developing for some time, that had Sandy troubled.  Not all of his dreamsand was making it back to him at daybreak in its journeys around the world.  Seemingly insignificant amounts, true, but those amounts were starting to add up to an idea that was unsettling to contemplate at best and horrifically dangerous at worst.

 

Thus the frown, and a vow to be less complacent in his dozy state, and more vigilant on his watch.

 

He remembered 1566 in Basel all too well.


End file.
